


Changed

by cygnaut



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Apocalypse, M/M, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-03
Updated: 2014-08-03
Packaged: 2018-02-11 15:44:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2073831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cygnaut/pseuds/cygnaut
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They said it was the end of the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Changed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spicedpiano](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spicedpiano/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Fuck the End of the World](https://archiveofourown.org/works/601428) by [spicedpiano](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spicedpiano/pseuds/spicedpiano). 



They said it was the end of the world.

Some people did anyway, and Charles didn't have the luxury of ignoring what _anyone_ was saying these days. Everyone was searching for an explanation and nothing seemed out of the realm of possibility.

Conspiracy theories abounded, each of them more unlikely than the last: Government experiments. Genetically modified food. Solar flares. Aliens.

The state of emergency they've been under ever since it happened is only feeding the conspiracy nuts. There's a travel ban like they're in the middle of a blizzard or a hurricane, waiting for a natural disaster to pass and normal life to resume again. Charles doubts anything will ever be normal again.  

The other favorite explanation is the end times. Overnight, competing groups of missionaries sprouted up on street corners where they shouted conflicting interpretations of the apocalypse at every passerby. There was a particularly loud man who took to standing near Kendall Station and yelling the same bible verse over and over in a singsong shout: "We will not all sleep, but we will all be _changed_."

The last time he went out, Charles had to avoid three different evangelical groups with megaphones, a lone man ranting about the singularity, and another one handing out pamphlets about recalculating the Mayan apocalypse.

Charles isn't sure what to believe, except that he refuses to accept a supernatural explanation. It might be the bias of his own specialty, but he's certain genetics can explain all of the different manifestations, as strange and outlandish though they seem. They don't know the mechanism yet, but surely they will find it eventually.

The strangest part is how it happened. All around the world, at the same instant, people… changed. Only the most dramatic and visible changes were evident at first—skin splitting, fur sprouting, bones twisting, and whole limbs growing in mere moments as perfectly ordinary human beings suddenly became _different._ It was terrifying for those who witnessed it and even more so for those who found their own bodies suddenly unfamiliar. As if, unknown to them, the first years of their lives were only an extended larval stage, and now they were bursting forth from the confines of an invisible chrysalis, their flesh taking its final, true form.

Other transformations were more subtle. Some people didn't even notice the change had happened to them until hours or days later when their new gifts made manifest. For a short time they thought they had been untouched, that whatever strange power had overtaken their friends and neighbors had mercifully passed them by.

It didn't happen like that for Charles. He was awake when it started, just settling in for an all-night study session. It was still early and he was feeling good, making rapid progress through his notes. Around midnight, his neighbors in the suite next door returned with friends, and he could hear them talking through the walls. The noise didn't bother him at first, but their voices grew louder and more intrusive as the hours passed. Finally, around 2am he decided to pack up and move to somewhere quieter.

Stepping out of his room, Charles discovered it was even louder in the hallway. He walked down to the common area, expecting to find a crowd there, but it was deserted. There didn't seem to be anyone in the hallway, but he could still clearly hear dozens of voices speaking. What was odd was that it wasn't like overhearing a conversation, or even a party. Each person seemed to be talking at once, overlapping one another and each continuing without acknowledging anyone else. He couldn't even make out any words, just a constant murmur like there was a crowd of hundreds hidden in the walls.

Was there a TV on somewhere or a radio? Or a mob of people outside shouting? Where was it coming from?

Charles started knocking on a door, not even realizing whose room it belonged to until his friend Hank appeared, nearly tripping over his own feet as he opened the door. "What? Charles? Is something wrong?"

"Do you hear that?" Charles asked. "Why's it so loud in here? Where _is_ everyone?"

"Hear what?" Hank asked. "What's the matter?" _You'd better be drunk right now and not high because I'm too tired to sit up with you during a bad trip._

"I'm not drunk _or_ high," Charles replied, turning in a circle looking up and down the hallway. "Don't you hear that?"

"Hear _what_?" Hank asked again. Charles ignored him, knocking on more doors as he tried to locate the source of the voices. Doors opened, people looking out into the hall and calling out and only adding to the cacophony in Charles' head.

"What's going on?"

_What's wrong with him?_

"Is something happening?"

_Why is there always something when I need to sleep._

"Hey, it's a weeknight! Some of us have class in the morning."

Charles covered his ears, sinking down against the wall. "Shut up! Would everyone please _shut up?_ "

Everyone looked at Charles and he heard them all say, nearly in unison, _What's wrong with him?_

But none of their mouths moved.

It was around then that Angel, who lived down the hall, woke up to discover she had sprouted large insect-like wings from her shoulders and started screaming.

It took a few hours of confusion and panic before they realized what was happening wasn't just isolated to their building. It wasn't some collective delusion or hysteria, but something that was happening to other people too. By dawn it was all over the news. The world changed overnight. 

Charles tries calling Westchester hourly at first, angry at himself all over again for leaving Raven behind to go to college. Every call ends the same—with three tones and a scolding operator saying, "we are unable to complete your call at this time."

He's sure mother is using the crisis as an excuse to drink herself into a stupor, and they're so isolated out there. Anything could be happening. Charles' mind fills in the blanks with worst-case scenarios: Raven changed, her new abilities out of control and dangerous; Mother stumbling down the stairs in the middle of the night as she's nearly done many times before. At least Cain is long gone, having packed up and left for the opposite side of the country shortly after his father's death the previous year.

When Charles finally gets through to Raven's cell phone it's the middle of the night and the sound keeps dropping out, snipping away whole words and clauses from their conversation.

"—m okay," Raven says. "Things have—here. It's been crazy."

"Do you…" Charles says, stopping as he realizes he doesn't know how to ask.

"Charles? Can you hear me?" Raven asks, mistaking his silence for the line cutting out again. "Charles?"

"Yes, I'm here, sorry. I mean, has anything happened? To you?" There's no answer for a long pause and then Charles is the one asking, "Raven? Raven? Are you there?"

"—here. Yes—happened to me. I've changed, can change. I don't—to explain."

"Me too," Charles says.

Raven huffs with what might be laugher or a sob. "Oh, Charles, what is going _on?_ "

Charles doesn't have an answer to that and a few moments later the call cuts out for good.

He spends most of the next few days hiding in his room. Being out and surrounded by people is quickly overwhelming as he finds out on an ill-fated trip to the grocery store. Charles can still hear his neighbor's thoughts inside his room, but it's muffled somewhat, like not seeing them directly helps. People are giving him a wide berth anyway. Most people aren't eager to be around the creep who can hear all of their thoughts. The only one who's still checking on him regularly is Charles' suitemate, Armando, whose own change seems to have made him impervious to telepathy.

Armando brings food by sometimes and tries to convince Charles to come out with him, but Charles refuses. Thank god classes are canceled for the foreseeable future.

Mostly Charles sleeps all day, pulling a pillow over his head and pressing it against his ears like that might help silence the noise.

When Charles wakes up that afternoon, someone is in the room with him. He knows it immediately, the sensation of an unfamiliar person's thoughts pressing up against his own, loud and close. Charles pulls the pillow tighter over his head in hopes the intruder will take the hint and leave. He can hear the other person thinking about the disheveled state of the room and Charles' own collapse. _What a mess. How long has he been in here alone? Someone should have checked on him before it got this bad—_

Charles speaks more to interrupt the irritating litany of thoughts than out of any desire to start a conversation. "I'm not falling apart," he mutters. "It's always like this."

"Uh-huh, I'm sure," someone says, his voice dry, a match to the no-nonsense tone of his thoughts.

Charles can't place the voice, although he suspects he should know who it is. The bed shifts with a creak of springs as whoever it is sits down behind Charles, shifting a pillow out of the way. Charles looks over his shoulder and sees an older student—probably in his late-twenties—with dark hair and the jawline of a classic Hollywood star.

"Armando said you were having a rough time," he says, giving Charles a very intense and very handsome stare.

"Who isn't?" Charles asks, snappish, although now that he's more awake he's less sure he wants to be alone. There's a clarity to this stranger's mind that's more than welcome. It's nice to listen to someone focused on the here and now instead of the constant confused panic Charles has been absorbing over the past few days.   

"Lots of people," he—Erik says. Charles is getting increasingly good at finding names. They were tricky at first since people don’t tend to think them explicitly. Names are kept deeper down, in the general sense of identity and _me_ -ness just below conscious thoughts. "Everyone is pretty confused and scared right now. I'm not sure what to believe about what happened, but I think those of us who changed need to stick together."

Charles nods, struggling to listen to Erik's voice as he continues. Conversations have been especially confusing lately since Charles now has to listen to what people are saying while at the same time he can hear the silent subtext they're keeping back. It's like every conversation is now happening in stereo with two different layered tracts. People also have the distracting tendency to think about what they're going to say next while Charles is trying to talk. Right now, underneath everything he is saying, Charles can hear Erik thinking loudly _ask me what I can do._

"There's a group of us—people who changed," Erik continues. "We've been meeting most days to talk about our abilities; new things we've learned, problems we're having, ways to cope, that kind of thing. It might be helpful for you too. There's a few other people with telepathic abilities."

Charles nods, doubtful he'll be leaving his room anytime soon. "So…" Charles asks. "What can you do?"

Erik smiles, his grin stretching so wide that for a moment Charles wonders if his new ability is unnaturally flexible skin. But then there's a clicking sound and a pile of printouts on Charles' desk scatters as a binder clip beneath them stirs and begins to move seemingly of its own power. The clip lifts into the air and hovers toward them, turning end over end until it's floating just above Erik's palm.

"Electromagnetism," Erik says. "I can manipulate magnetic fields and control ferrous metals."

"Oh," Charles says. He reaches out to touch the clip with one finger, poking at it as it turns in a slow circle in the space between them on the bed.

"You seem better," Erik says.

"It's not as bad with one person to focus on," Charles says, although just thinking about it reminds him of all the other minds he can hear murmuring at the edge of his consciousness. 

"Maybe you should go some place quieter, somewhere with less people?"

Charles nods and rubs the side of his face. He needs to shave and his skin feels clammy. "I thought about going home to get my sister, but with all the trains and buses suspended I don't have a way to get there.

"Rumor is they might lift the state of emergency next week, but who knows." _Not likely._

"I wish I could at least _talk_ to her," Charles says. "I've only gotten through to her once since it happened."

Erik nods. "Seems weird that the networks are still overloaded." In his head, Erik isn't thinking "weird," but _suspicious_.

"I tried sending an email," Charles says, worrying the ends of his blanket. "But she never responded."

"There have been blackouts some places," Erik says. "Could have knocked out their internet."

"Yeah, sure, I'm sure it's something like that," Charles says. This is all tired ground now he's covered repeatedly the past few days. "I'm just worried since things are so... It feels like anything could have happened, you know? I've heard all kinds of stories of changed people with new powers losing control." 

Erik waves a hand, irritated by those same rumors and insinuations. "That's just other people—the _un_ changed—being scared of something they don't understand."

"Maybe," Charles says. "But I'd still feel better if I could see her. It's not like she's on the other side of the country, she's only in Westchester."

Erik nods. "I know, you told me. But things are calming down already. I heard a rumor they're going to reopen the highways soon. I'm sure you'll be able to get down there soon."

"I told you?" Charles repeats, thinking back on their conversation and wondering for a moment if Erik also has a touch of telepathy.

Erik raises his eyebrows, a smile starting at one corner of his mouth. "We've met before. You don't remember?"

"Remember what?" Charles asks. "I mean, no? I guess not?"

Erik laughs and looks away. "It was last semester, back in November. I went to a party at this house on—Allston?"

"Wait, at Alex's place?" Charles doesn't remember much of anything from that party so it's not exactly surprising that he would forget Erik. "You were there?"

Erik shakes his head again, and Charles can feel a hot prickle of embarrassment from him. "Can you see memories?" Erik asks, at the same time he's thinking, _this would be easier if you could just look in my head._

Charles isn't sure if he _can_ read memories, but then he can hear it, voices shouting at one another over pounding music turned up too loud, the bass line distorted by cheap speakers. Erik is in a crowded room, hot and sweaty despite the winter cold outside. He pushes through the throng on his way out of the kitchen, a bottle of watery cheap beer held high in one hand.

Erik is thinking about leaving, feeling claustrophobic and having lost the friends who dragged him to the party in the first place. The tide of the crowd carries him through to the front room, full of more strangers, all of them too loud and too young. When Erik spots an empty seat on the couch in the corner he dives for it, figuring he might as well sit and finish his beer before he makes his escape.

The other occupant of the couch shifts, raising his head from where it's resting against the cushions. Charles experiences a moment of intense out-of-body confusion as he looks down into his own face, looking glassy-eyed and clearly plastered past the point of safe return. _Undergrad,_ Erik thinks, taking in the trendy haircut, boyish face, and scruff of dark beard grown in a first attempt at maturity.

"Hello, friend," memory-Charles says, leaning closer. "I'm Charles." Charles doesn't remember any of this, but it's seemingly true-to-character. He generally starts considering everyone his friend after a few drinks, even strangers he's never met before.

Erik nods and introduces himself with a short "Erik." Charles gets the sense that he tends to treat all friendly overtures with a good deal of suspicion. Erik puts a lot of energy into appearing unapproachable, and it's disconcerting when someone fails to take the hint.

"What do you do, Erik," Charles asks, leaning on Erik's shoulder so he can slur right in his ear. Erik notices, somewhat reluctantly, that Charles has very red lips, like he's been biting at them. Or someone else has.

"Mechanical Engineering," Erik says. "I'm a TA…" There's a pause as Erik debates whether or not he should say more, thinking it might be a little cheap, before deciding to go for it and adding, "Fluid mechanics."

Charles laughs, rising to the bait immediately. "Oh, I'm rotten at fluid mechanics. Maybe you could tutor me." His hand curls around Erik's upper arm, squeezing his bicep, and Charles has a probably false sense memory of firm muscle and hot skin under his hand.  

Erik snorts and shakes his head. He normally has strict rules about undergrads, but it's not like this guy is in any of his classes.

His memory skips ahead then, blurring past a few minutes of small talk and likely rubbish flirting to get to the part where Erik's mouth is pressing against those red lips while Charles makes a muffled noise of approval and writhes against him on the couch. Things get pleasantly blurry again with a haze of lust that only breaks when Charles pushes back to say something—probably a suggestion that they take this someplace else—but before he can get the words out, he winces, looking pained, and turns to vomit off to the side of the couch, splattering Erik's shoes in the process.

Charles can feel his face burning back in the present as Erik's memory skips ahead again to remember depositing Charles in a bathroom to clean up. Erik spends the next twenty minutes hunting around the party asking if anyone knows Charles before eventually finding Sean and Armando in the back of the house.

Charles breaks free from the grip of memory, too embarrassed to keep watching as Erik tells Armando they should probably get their friend home, if not call for an alcohol transport.

Erik coughs, looking away as he scratches the side of his chin. "Did you get all that?" _I'm assuming yes._

"I'm not an _undergrad_ ," Charles says. "I'm a PhD candidate!"

"Okay, sorry. You weren't being super articulate last time we met."

Charles clears his throat. "Did I ruin your shoes?"

"No," Erik says, looking amused. "It wasn't that bad. Washed off."

"Sorry. And, uh, thanks for taking care of me."

Erik shrugs. "Sure. Hey, like I said, we've got to stick together."

"We weren't changed then," Charles points out.

"No, but we are now," Erik says. "And if you're still desperate to get to Westchester, I've got a car. When the roads open up again I could drive you."

"What?" Charles shakes his head. "No, I couldn't ask that."

"You're not asking, I'm offering. And it's not just for you. If your sister's changed too we should bring her back here. We've got to—"

"Stick together, yeah." Charles says, finishing for him.

Erik smiles and holds out his hand, offering it to him like he wants to shake. Charles takes it and gets yanked to his feet as Erik stands up, pulling them both off the bed. "Come on, if you don't want to leave let's at least clean up a bit in here. It'll make you feel better."

"What? It's not that bad!" Charles insists as Erik starts gathering up the various stacks of plates and glasses piled on the floor. "I was going to take those to the kitchen today. Eventually."

"Were you saving this?" Erik asks, holding up a half of a bagel Charles had set aside the day before.

"No, ick, give me that—"

Erik somehow manages to bully Charles into doing the dishes and then taking out the trash with him, which is the first time he's been out of his room in days. The voices are still louder out in the hallway and the common area, but having another person to concentrate on does seem to help. Charles isn't quite ready to brave city streets again, but he agrees to try meeting Erik's group of changed friends tomorrow.

"And I'm still taking you to see your sister too." _I'm going to keep asking if you say no so you might as well say yes._

"Maybe," Charles says, but he's smiling while he says it.

Maybe change doesn't have to mean the end of the world.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Unforgotten for beta reading and general cheerleading!


End file.
